#canadian values

[xtruss]

Analysis: Is Canada Really So Immigrant-Friendly?

Trudeau’s ambitious plan to increase immigration is facing pushback from the left and right.

— By Claire Porter Robbins | Foreign Policy | August 28, 2023

A refugee arrives at the Roxham Road border crossing at the U.S.-Canada border in Champlain, New York, on March 25, 2023. Lars Hagberg/AFP Via Getty Images

Canadians like to think of their country as a nation built on immigration. Canada, the story goes, is a bastion of multiculturalism. This narrative has been refined through smug comparison to the United States and other Western countries. At first glance, it may seem that Canada is more welcoming: While other Western nations have faced heavy criticism for their migration policies, Canada has garnered a reputation as being immigrant-friendly. Since 2019, the Canadian government has resettled more refugees than any other country, with little public backlash.

So in November, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to expand immigration, it seemed like a politically savvy move. Since Trudeau took office in 2015, immigration has already increased from around 300,000 to 400,000 new residents per year. Now, Canada plans to welcome 500,000 permanent residents each year by 2025. Laid out as a way to build up the Canadian economy, which faces labor shortages and a declining birth rate, the plan prioritizes bringing in skilled immigrants. It was met with praise from major corporate advocacy groups, such as the Business Council of Canada.

Ten months later, Trudeau’s plan is facing skepticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Criticism from the far right is no surprise. But as the government has struggled to integrate and support migrants, the prospect of bringing in significantly more of them has led immigration experts and advocates to air grievances about what they see as the administration’s failings in related sectors, notably refugee resettlement and housing.

Meanwhile, public opinion on immigration has started to shift. As cost of living and housing prices stay stubbornly high, anti-immigration sentiment—long boiling—may rise to the surface.

In early 2019, controversy arose over billboards put up across the country with the slogan “Say No to Mass Immigration,” which promoted then-MP Maxime Bernier’s far-right People’s Party of Canada in the campaign for the upcoming federal election. Complaints and citizens’ petitions ultimately led the advertising company to take down the signs.

Those who complained about the billboards, including candidates from Canada’s center and left-wing parties, saw their removal as a victory for Canadian pluralism, thrown into relief by then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s xenophobic, anti-migrant policies to the south. On election day in 2019, Trudeau’s Liberal Party triumphed, while Bernier’s party received meager support.

The Liberals’ success, combined with the outcry over the far right’s weaponization of immigration, signaled to Trudeau that most Canadian voters were resolutely pro-migration. Polling seemed to back this up. The month before the election, the Environics Institute for Survey Research found that 85 percent of Canadians surveyed agreed that immigration has a positive effect on the economy, while 69 percent supported the current immigration rate.

Yet these figures obscured Canada’s long-standing challenges with diversity and inclusion. “Because Canada is pro-immigration, there’s a perception that conflates this with Canada being an open society and not being racist,” said Pallavi Banerjee, a sociologist at the University of Calgary who researches how discrimination affects young migrants’ futures.

Canada has a history of racist policies related to immigration, from the late-19th-century Chinese head tax, which forced Chinese immigrants to pay a fee when entering the country, to Quebec’s highly controversial Bill 21, a law passed in 2019 that prohibits the display of religious symbols from public servants’ attire, including crosses, turbans, kippahs, and hijabs. In one high-profile incident in 2021, Bill 21 led to the removal of a Muslim teacher from her classroom for wearing a hijab.

In a 2022 Environics survey, 46 percent of respondents agreed that “there are too many immigrants coming into this country who are not adopting Canadian values.” The term “Canadian values,” though vague, points to respondents’ desire for immigrants to assimilate. The same poll has been conducted for three decades, and while that figure has decreased from 72 percent in 1993, it still indicates that Canada has yet to fully embrace multiculturalism.

Even at current immigration levels, Banerjee said, migrants are segregated from established Canadians, limiting opportunities for them to integrate into the social fabric of their new country and thrive. According to Statistics Canada as of 2021, 41.8 percent of nonpermanent residents and 16.1 percent of immigrants who moved to Canada in the past five years lived in poverty.

The government’s failure to fully integrate newcomers has spurred skepticism of Trudeau’s new program on the left. Columnists for center and left-wing outlets have written that Canada has an “immigration elephant in the room,” referring to racism against newcomers, and that the country is “woefully unprepared for the coming immigration boom” due to funding cuts for newcomer settlement organizations, which are typically funded through a combination of federal, provincial, and private donor funds.

Advocates for refugees and other migrants are some of the loudest voices demanding reform to Canada’s immigration and settlement processes before expansion. Directors of settlement and refugee organizations, who may have otherwise endorsed Trudeau’s plans, say the system is already overloaded. Newcomers categorized as “highly skilled” have publicly complained about being stuck in a bureaucratic limbo with the immigration ministry and not receiving decisions on their residency permits for years.

Public opinion appears to have shifted as well. Even before Trudeau’s plan, anti-immigration sentiment was already worsening online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Banerjee said, as some Canadians blamed immigrants, particularly those of Asian descent, for the spread of the disease. In July, David Coletto, CEO of Canada’s Abacus polling firm, wrote on his Substack that 61 percent of Canadians polled believe that 500,000 immigrants per year is too high, including 37 percent who feel it is “way too high.” In addition, a July Abacus survey found that four in 10 Canadians polled would vote for a politician who promised to reduce immigration levels.

Now, some Canadians are conflating a different issue with immigration: the housing crisis that Trudeau has been unable to stem in his nearly eight-year tenure. In the many think pieces about immigration, commentators have complained of already overburdened services, from health care wait times to the availability of language lessons. But the most common criticism of Trudeau’s plan to expand immigration is the lack of affordable housing.

“Canada doesn’t have a refugee problem. Canada has a housing problem,” said Francesca Allodi-Ross, who runs Romero House, a nongovernmental organization in Toronto that connects migrants with people who have spare rooms. She worries about newcomers being blamed for a housing shortage that has been a long time coming.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada has the most expensive housing market in the G-7. Vacancy rates for rental housing are at a two-decade low, and the Royal Bank of Canada expects the country’s rental housing gap (the difference between available rental units and those seeking them) to surpass 120,000 by 2026—quadrupling today’s deficit. In early August, Stefane Marion, the chief economist of the National Bank, called on the government to revise the immigration target until housing supply could match demand, citing “record imbalance” between the two.

Meanwhile, as housing shortages threaten to affect the coming “highly skilled” migrants prioritized by Trudeau’s plan, social justice-oriented groups such as Romero House have pointed out that the government has so far neglected to provide enough housing for other newcomers who have already arrived: specifically, refugees and asylum-seekers. The government’s failure to arrange temporary housing for them was glaringly apparent over the summer, when hundreds of asylum-seekers camped outside Toronto’s emergency shelter intake center.

The way the government responds to the needs of newcomers, and especially refugees, is “very reactive—and it’s been this way for years,” Allodi-Ross said. It was only after the Toronto shelter crisis, when many media commentators questioned Trudeau’s immigration expansion program, that the municipal, provincial, and federal government committed $71.4 million to housing for refugees and asylum-seekers, and the city freed up more hotels for emergency shelter.

Directors of temporary shelters and refugee settlement programs say there is a chronic lack of state funding and support for recent arrivals. John Mtshede, the executive director of Matthew House, a shelter for asylum-seekers in Ontario’s Niagara region, said his shelter is stretched to capacity. For years, the government has repeatedly denied Matthew House’s requests for funding to develop a plot of land for additional housing. Matthew House has found its most sustainable support through private fundraising and religious groups, rather than government funding.

Like many others who work at refugee and immigration NGOs, Mtshede is frustrated with the lack of coordination between the municipal, provincial, and federal governments about who bears responsibility for housing the government’s target of a little more than 70,000 new refugees each year. “Nobody wants to take the blame for this situation,” he said.

Despite the pushback, the Liberal government appears to be doubling down and ignoring accusations that it has not funded the services required to process and settle newcomers. At a press conference in early August, a reporter asked Marc Miller, the new immigration minister, if the government would reduce the immigration targets.

“Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at,” he said. “But certainly, I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.” In the meantime, newcomers will increasingly become the fall guy for the housing crisis that has unfolded under Trudeau’s watch.

— Claire Porter Robbins is a Journalist in Calgary, Alberta, and the Founder of Btchcoin News. She has worked as an aid worker in the Middle East and in Strategic Communications for a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission.

[formlines]

One Day Wegit Decided it was Time for a Change so he Decided to Move on in his Magical, Mystical Canoe

Lyle Wilson

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[estebunny]

esteban ocon greeting with alpine team members around garage before fp3

via f1tv f1 live stream

[indelen]

Given that in the books series Lockwood's last name is probably a reference to the narrator burdened by supernatural experiences in "Wuthering Heights",

And given that Kipps's last name is probably a reference to the narrator burdened by supernatural experiences in "The Woman in Black",

I submit to the approval of the Tumblr Midnight Society that Celia Lockwood's maiden name should be Celia Harker.

[martinkate]

just realized we use a different currency. what the fuck is up with that

YEAH ISNT THAT SO WEIRD? like your money is paper. wtf

[thefugitivesaint]

Palmer Cox (1840-1924), 'The Flog Afloat', ''Queerie Queers With Hands Wings And Claws'', 1885 Source

[shiverandqueeef]

extremely long and detailed answers below! i may or may not have gone full adhd hyper focus mode on this one 😅

VOTE BEFORE GOING ANY FURTHER!!

or read ahead and vote once you know the correct answer i don't control you - you do you bud

there is an american state canadians affectionately refer to as "south canada"

good ol' minnesota! basically, minny and parts of canada (mainly ontario and BC) have such similar climates, flora/fauna, and culture that it's pretty easy to see each other as cross border cousins. it's almost like political borders are social constructs or something. wild. anyways, one factor of the whole two lands pointing at each other and yelling "same hat!" is the not insignificant portion of minnesotans who have canadian ancestry. a shared passion for hockey is another (arguably more significant) factor in canadians' continued fondness for this one very specific region of america.

-> british columbians also really like portland (we find common ground in being unbearably pretentious) but the rest of canada makes fun of us for it.

the base of our national cocktail is vodka, tomato...and clam juice

okay so it's called a caesar and is basically a bloody mary with one major difference. here's a list of ingredients:

and for those not in the know, clamato juice is a combination of tomato and clam.

yeah. istg it's actually a delicious cocktail. though admittedly i may have been indoctrinated at an early age.

we share a land border with our ultimate archenemy: Denmark

The Whiskey Wars! okay so Hans Island is this dinky little uninhabited piece of land literally smaller than 2 clicks long, and both canada and denmark have tried to claim as their own since like, the late 1800s. it was a low key, essentially meaningless land dispute for a decent chunk of the 20th century but then. it's the 80s and a group of canadian soldiers are fucking wrecked on cocaine. they roll up to hans island, plant a canadian flag in the barren ground and place underneath it a bottle of primo canadian whiskey. denmark responds by hauling ass to the flag site and replacing it with their own, drinking the whiskey and leaving a bottle of danish schnapps. thus began 3 decades of international capture the flag, where we basically took turns planting our flags and leaving each other liquor, sometimes with cute little notes trash talking one another. naval ships passing each other in international water and emphatically waving their flags at each other became a time honoured tradition.

in 2022, canada and denmark officially settled the dispute by splitting the island down the middle and each taking half. it was meant as a symbolic gesture of solidarity with ukraine after it was invaded by russia, which. kinda stupid? but also kind of lovely. and now we get to share a land border with our beloved frenemy <3

there is a province in which everybody speaks with an irish sounding accent

girl. please allow me to let me tell you about Newfoundland and Labrador, canada's easternmost province, and an island unto themselves. like they are literally an island but also just so culturally unlike anywhere else in the country. during the colonization of canada, the majority of europeans who settled in the area were from either Ireland or the West Country of england. between the two you have like, 8 distinct dialects, and that's before you add the influence of scottish, french, and algonquian. this linguistic stew bubbled away and over the years has resulted in the newfie accent/dialect. it is delightful. newfies are also just super friendly in general towards visiting mainlanders (but watch out! they will lull you into a false sense of safety with their hospitality and then gleefully drink you under the table. you have never had a hangover like the hangover from a newfie drinking contest. if one challenges you just. say. no.)

they also cook steaks to the point they become utterly indistinguishable from a hockey puck but it's okay, we forgive them.

here's a clip of american comedian Gianmarco Soresi encountering a newfie accent in the wild during a gig in edmonton (the title calls him a 'dumb american' but it's from his own youtube channel)

we had a 90s hair fad called "the beaver" it was like a mullet! but worse :)

NOT TRUE! thank god. although if it was true i'd like to think that it would have by now been appropriated and by some enigmatic lesbian magicks made sexy (as they have so successfully done with the mullet)

we passed a law specifically to ensure "sorry" is not an admission of liability

i know right. apparently because it's so common in canada to use "sorry" not only as an apology, but also as an expression of sympathy, the government instituted "apology laws." they preclude courts, tribunals, and arbitrators from finding that an apology is an admission of liability.

there was this one time we burned the white house down. allegedly. (sorry)

America has actually invaded Canada twice (in 1775 and 1812). they lost pretty much every battle -thanks in large part to the unsung efforts of first nation and indigenous tribes who sided with the british. anyways it was in 1812 that canadians invaded america right back, took control of the capital, and burned a bunch of shit down - including the white house! canadians are very proud of this, despite the fact it was ~technically~ a war between america and britain. "canada" didn't exist as an official country until 1867 but...well. what is historical accuracy in the face of an opportunity to mock america ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

iconic canadian musical comedy trio The Arrogant Worms have a whole song about it. it's a wild oversimplification of events and also a total banger

to this day america's official position is that this very much did not happen.

the majority of canadian kids grow up playing soccer instead of hockey

while hockey is the official winter sport of canada (lacrosse is the official summer sport) and hands down the most watched sport in the country, the majority of canadian families simply can not afford to let their kids play it. with expensive equipment, league fees, and travel expenses (just to name a few), hockey currently costs more than equestrian sports. you can own and care for an actual goddamn horse for less money than it takes to put your kids in hockey. so while most kids grow up playing pond hockey and shinny in the backyard, only a privileged minority ever become involved at a competitive level

our money is plastic, holographic, and semi-transparent (and sometimes pink!)

our money is so pretty you guys!!! it looks like it belongs in a barbie play set. also, every bill has braille on it for the vision-impaired! we are the only country who has this which is. genuinely wtf. it's such an obvious and easy accommodation

just ignore all the faces of various colonizers and imperialists and look at the pretty colours and shiny bits 🙃

and that's all folks! i hope you had fun and maybe learned a little about canada. if you found any of this interesting, i would say "look into more fun and funky fresh canadian history!" but honestly? our history texts are kinda infamously dry and boring. unless you focus on resources from indigenous, first nations, metis and/or inuit voices, and then it gets real interesting real fast. also infuriating. hey did you know canada had chattel slavery for a hot second? anyways this was meant to be about silly things only. here, enjoy this video from a 1994 episode of sketch comedy show Royal Canadian Air Farce ft. legendary Oneida actor Graham Greene

[phlurrii]

So I figured out what’s wrong with my brushes, turns out procreate pushes the Apple Pencil to its limits! So when the pencil breaks, so does procreate ;w;

After having a TIME last night figuring this out and coming to terms with having to blow 200$ on a new pen a month before moving, it was pointed out I should maybe open up some commissions. So whenever my new pen arrives in these next few days, I’ll be opening up comms to refill the dip into savings I’ll have to take! I wanna also state these are NOT emergency commissions in any way, shape, or form. Simply a surprise expense that puts me in the theoretical savings hole and brain no likey when I have to diverge from my meticulously planned monthly expenses TwT

[oldshowbiz]

[eggy-tea]

me: hey, weather app, what’s the temperature outside today? i've got some yard work to do so i want to dress appropriately

weather app:

me, outside, sweat rolling down my face just from getting out my tools: hey weather app, are you sure about that 27?

weather app:

me: cool cool, well at least it's going to stay sunny for a bit, right?

weather app:

me: what does that mean though?

weather app: idk man. it's not that deep. 30% rain sun lightning. what more do you want from me?

thanks, bud.

[alias-mike]

oh this art job pays £200 if i get accepted! sure ill apply, id love to get a bit of extra cash :3

*googles how much £200 is in cad*

lord almighty thats a lot more than "a bit" of extra cash

[drasadonbrown]

“Remind children that their successes and failures are not representations of their worth.” ~ Dr. Asa Don Brown

#Remind #children #that #their #successes #and #failures #are #not #representations #of #their #worth. #asadonbrown #YourDigitalFormula

[tradmare]

This book. I truly love that I decided to start the new year with Christian fiction. I can feel my heart, soul and relationship with God changing and growing. 9.5/10

I am really enjoying the Women of the West series, and I’m halfway through the Love Comes Softly series. If you’re looking for good, clean, wholesome books…please check out Janette Oke.